Haiti: A Send-Off for the Second Team

We’ve been keeping a close eye on the University of Chicago Medical Center’s activity in Haiti to help recovery efforts after the earthquake of January 12th. It’s been two weeks since the first batch of physicians and nurses from the Medical Center left, with one emergency medicine physician joining others in Port-au-Prince while six volunteers went to a hospital camp in Fond Parisien, near the border with the Dominican Republic. Yesterday, the first members from a second batch of volunteers traveled to Haiti to take over for the initial crew, most of which will be returning tonight. All told, 22 employees of the Medical Center will be headed to Haiti this week – a dozen to Fond Parisien, 6 to Port-au-Prince, and 4 plastic surgeons traveling to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where they will see injured Haitians transported by airlift.

John Easton, our director of communications, was present at the preparation meeting for the 22 volunteers on Saturday evening at the Medical Center. In the video below, you can hear from Chrissy Babcock, co-leader of the Haiti effort, and from several of the physicians, nurses, physical therapists and logistics personnel who are joining the recovery effort. Note the giant red duffel bags of supplies – each person traveling to Haiti will check the maximum allowed luggage on their flight to bring the supplies requested by the teams already in the field.

You can also listen to an interview with the other team co-leader, emergency medicine physician Christian Theodosis, that ran today on Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview program. Theodosis was interviewed via satellite phone from the field hospital in Fond Parisien.